Saturday 2 May 2009

In Defense Of Wolverine: Beating Back The Bad Reviews

In Defense Of Wolverine: Beating Back The Bad Reviews
Written by: Josh Tyler
Posted using ShareThis

Fox’s latest superhero movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine is taking a pounding. Critics are currently ripping it apart with a savagery usually reserved only for Uwe Boll movies. The beast inside Wolverine has unleashed a feral animal inside the world’s most prominent reviewers, the claws are out, and Hugh Jackman is their target. The film currently holds a dismal 38% fresh ratting at RottenTomatoes.com, an average which is still plummeting. By comparison the last X-Men movie, widely regarded as a huge mistake, managed a 56% fresh rating among film critics. Wolverine’s dismal reviews put it in an elite class of awful superhero movies, alongside the likes of Elektra and Ghost Rider.

Critics have it in for Wolverine, but maybe some of us saw a different movie.

Audience response to Wolverine has so far, been remarkably positive. Users on IMDB have given it an average rating of 7/10. An impromptu poll currently being conducted among viewers on this site most definitely skews towards the positive. What’s more, on message boards and talkbacks around the web, the general feeling seems to be “hey this wasn’t that bad.”

Wolverine needs a defender. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a far cry from Ghost Rider. Better this than the lifeless abortion that was X-Men: The Last Stand. Gavin Hood is not Brett fucking Ratner and his movie deserves a little more credit. Yet even Cinema Blend’s own Katey Rich called it “a bad, maybe even terrible movie” in her review. Katey you know I think you’re awesome but in this case, I respectfully disagree. You’ve all got it wrong.

In an almost certainly vain attempt to balance the scales, I’ll do my best to set things right by taking the naysayers on. Below I’m answering the critics whose opinions most represent the generally negative consensus on Wolvy. If you haven’t see X-Men Origins: Wolverine yet, you may want to stop reading right now. Spoilers will be involved.

1 comment:

Caffeinated said...

Making this movie R-rated would have helped it out in so many ways... they wouldn't have had to try so hard to soften up such an inherently gory story line